Global Digital Marketing Firm

Menu

Small Business Social Media Tips

Social media may be the last thing on your mind after a long day of managing employees, interacting with customers, ordering inventory and keeping track of your finances. But it’s an important tool that can help you market your small business and engage with customers.

Social media marketing has proven it’s here to stay, has sustainable ROI and companies are finding ways to accurately measure their success. If you engage in social media marketing wisely, it will be your most cost-effective marketing tool. I think social media is largely defined by its ability to enable a new form of word of mouth. For small businesses, social media enables them to embrace this new power of word of mouth marketing and use it to build a powerful bond with their audience. Here are some simple ways small businesses can optimize their social media presence.

Set goals and benchmarks

It is important to clarify your company’s strategy and goals, so that you know what you are working towards. Your goals don’t have to be extensive; you can aim to increase your number of followers or engagement with customers, or to get sales leads directly through social media. Set clear benchmarks before you start any online marketing campaign and throughout, in order to have a clear measure of success.

Focus your efforts

.

Choose a couple social media platform, whether it’s Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube, and master them. You need to carefully analyze where your customers are in order to accurately determine what platforms your business should be on. Be sure to take into account that every social media platform has different audiences when planning your social media content strategy. It is important that all of your social media platforms are consistent. Same username, same updated info, etc. You may also want to develop a social media calendar that will include what the strategic items you want to post, how many times a week you’ll blog, when you publish what content, etc.

.

Optimize your website

Your social media accounts should focus on driving users to your website, so it is very important to have a website that reflects your brand and is up to date with your most current content, products, services, etc. Make sure all of your social media accounts include a link to your website and vice versa. I like to use a website as a social media hub, that links all of their social media platforms together. It is important to identify your target keywords. Optimize your content great for your community and search engines. Use Google Suggest and Google Adwords to identify the right keywords to use blog posts, and be sure to optimize all of your social media platforms for search engine optimization (SEO).

Share content

Social media is about more than just selling your products and services; it’s a chance to engage with your customers and establish your business as an industry expert. Sharing content – whether it’s original articles, aggregated articles, photos or videos – is a great way to engage with your customers.

People are also looking for something authentic. They want to know the real you. If you’re business is a hotel, for example, share information about hotels that’s not directly related to your business. If you own a sports store, tweet about and to the athletes your business is affiliated with. If you own a bakery, post Instagram photos of your staff frosting cupcakes behind the scenes.

I strongly recommend sharing before selling. Sharing other industry leaders content at a ratio of four to one before you promote your business is a good place to start. This will also encourage other thought leaders to share your content. You are now ready to effectively launch your small business social media. Good luck and be sure to contact us with any questions.